AMIP Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice:
Observational and Boundary Condition Data Sets The AMIP SST and sea ice boundary conditons are available at this site. Two distinctly different data sets have been prepared. The first is the AMIP SST and sea ice observational data set. These monthly mean data are provided and updated by NCAR following a procedure described by Hurrell et al. (2008) in a journal article. This dataset, which at this site became available in 2007, supercedes the original AMIP II observational data set described in a web document. There are differences between the earlier dataset and the present one which are generally small but not entirely negligible.

The second data set is the AMIP SST and sea ice boundary conditions. These data are derived from the observational data set, and should  be used in the AMIP simulations. The primary difference between the boundary condition data set and the observational data set is that adjustments have been made to insure that when daily values are linearly interpolated between the monthly  values contained in the data set (i.e., when used as boundary conditions for an AGCM), the monthly average of the observations is preserved. Monthly averages are not preserved when daily values are obtained by linearly intepolated between monthly mean observations (as in AMIP I).  When the boundary condition data (as opposed to the observed monthly means) are used for an AGCM simulation, it has been shown that in addition to preserving the observational monthly means, the seasonal cycle and the interannual variance are more accurately represented than the method used in AMIP I.

The data and documentation are available at:

AMIP SST and Sea ice Observations: data
AMIP SST and Sea ice Boundary Condition: documentation and data

UCRL-MI-125597